Gold Market News

Central Bank to increase gold metal reserves

RBC, 21.09.2006, Moscow 18:45:08.The Bank of Russia intends to increase the volume of gold metals in Russia's gold and foreign currency reserves, the Bank's First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev told the State Duma budget committee today. The share of gold in the country's gold and foreign currency reserves is 3 percent at present. If the volume of gold metals increases, still its share will not raise, he noted.

The prices of gold and other precious metals have been rising lately but the market is correcting at present, Ulyukayev stressed. The gold price is now $550 per ounce, which is $80-90 lower than the record price. The metal prices are highly volatile at the moment, but the Central Bank has not imposed any limits on gold acquisition, he said.

Russia's gold reserves exceed 380 tonnes. -source

Agreement on electronic metals trading

By Kevin Morrison

Nymex Holdings is expected to issue $300m of shares to members of its metals futures division Comex, after an agreement on Thursday for Comex gold, silver and copper futures to trade electronically. -source

Finans Portfoy Launches First GOLD ETF in Turkey

Istanbul GOLD ETF, GOLDIST, will be offered to public on September 21st and 22nd.
Finans Portfoy, an Istanbul based asset management company, launches the first GOLD ETF in Turkey. Istanbul GOLD ETF, GOLDIST, will be listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange and is expected to start trading next week. GOLDIST will be based on international Gold price and denominated in grams. -source


CBOT Expands Availability of Gold & Silver Options to Open Auction Market

CHICAGO, IL (September 20, 2006) – The Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) announced today that it plans to expand the availability of its options on Full-sized Gold (100 oz.) and Silver (5,000 oz.) futures by listing the contracts on its open auction trading floor, side-by-side with the e-cbot® electronic trading platform, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2006. Currently, the contracts trade exclusively on e-cbot, the Exchange’s electronic trading platform.

Also, effective October 1, 2006, the CBOT is waiving all Exchange transaction fees for Metals options trading for all fee categories. The fee waiver will apply to Metals options trade transactions on both CBOT platforms. The transaction fee waiver will remain in effect until June 30, 2007. -source


American Stock Exchange Lists Central Gold-Trust

NEW YORK, Sept. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The American Stock Exchange(R) (Amex(R)) announced today that it has begun trading the units of Central Gold-Trust under the ticker symbol "GTU". The Trust began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2003 under the ticker symbols "GTU.UN" (denominated in Canadian dollars) and "GTU.U" (denominated in US dollars) and is now dually listed on the Amex. -source